Four-Ball Follies - What a mess

[Strategery]

tl;dr

[betarhoalphadelta]

Okay, so it seems we have two scenarios here...

 

1. Mr B suggests that hitting a ball that is not your own is not a "wrong ball" violation if it is not making a stroke with intent to score. 

2. If this is the case, whether or not it is a penalty depends on whether there is intent to practice. 

 

So a slightly different scenario to try to determine something...

 

Stroke play, individual score. Player A's ball comes to rest in the fairway 5 yards back and to the side of a fellow competitor, Player B's ball. Player A is away, and plays first, and duff their ball 25 yards. In a fit of rage, Player A "Happy Gilmore" swings and knocks Player B's ball in a direction completely orthogonal to the hole and OB. 

 

Flushed by their own inability to control themself, Player A hastily says "sorry" and Player B now has to replace his ball because they knocked it off the planet. 

 

Per Mr B, there would be no penalty for "playing a wrong ball" because Player A was not playing with intent to score nor thinking the ball was theirs. Also Per Mr B, there would be no penalty for "practicing" because unless Player A regularly swings like "Happy Gilmore", it's clear that this was not practicing. 

 

But I can't think that in any reasonable world, there's no penalty for Player A for this conduct.

 

So, is there anything else in the rules that would cause a penalty? And if so, is there any way that rule applies to the OP's scenario, in such a way that hitting a fellow competitor's ball "because it's in the way" is verboten?

[Mr. Bean]

3 hours ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

Okay, so it seems we have two scenarios here...

 

1. Mr B suggests that hitting a ball that is not your own is not a "wrong ball" violation if it is not making a stroke with intent to score. 

2. If this is the case, whether or not it is a penalty depends on whether there is intent to practice. 

 

So a slightly different scenario to try to determine something...

 

Stroke play, individual score. Player A's ball comes to rest in the fairway 5 yards back and to the side of a fellow competitor, Player B's ball. Player A is away, and plays first, and duff their ball 25 yards. In a fit of rage, Player A "Happy Gilmore" swings and knocks Player B's ball in a direction completely orthogonal to the hole and OB. 

 

Flushed by their own inability to control themself, Player A hastily says "sorry" and Player B now has to replace his ball because they knocked it off the planet. 

 

Per Mr B, there would be no penalty for "playing a wrong ball" because Player A was not playing with intent to score nor thinking the ball was theirs. Also Per Mr B, there would be no penalty for "practicing" because unless Player A regularly swings like "Happy Gilmore", it's clear that this was not practicing. 

 

But I can't think that in any reasonable world, there's no penalty for Player A for this conduct.

 

So, is there anything else in the rules that would cause a penalty? And if so, is there any way that rule applies to the OP's scenario, in such a way that hitting a fellow competitor's ball "because it's in the way" is verboten?

 

You have understood the concepts perfectly, well done.

 

The only thing I can think of to penalize player A is R1.2a, misconduct. He is not playing a wrong ball nor is he practicing. Penalizing would be up to the Committee.

[Nels55]

26 minutes ago, Mr. Bean said:

 

You have understood the concepts perfectly, well done.

 

The only thing I can think of to penalize player A is R1.2a, misconduct. He is not playing a wrong ball nor is he practicing. Penalizing would be up to the Committee.

All he had to do was mark the ball....